Sons of Iraq Collapsing?

Very disturbing story by Leila Fadel in McClatchy on growing tensions between the Iraqi government and the Sons of Iraq. She starts by recounting the now well-documented problems in trying to integrate the SoIs into the Iraqi security forces:

American military officials here have always said that the creation of the Sunni militias was at least as important to the precipitous drop in violence as the presence of 30,000 more U.S. troops, and that incorporating them into the security forces would go a long way toward bringing about the sort of reconciliation needed for long-term stability.

After initially embracing the idea of bringing the militia members into the security forces, however, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki hasn't followed through. A committee that Maliki formed to organize the militias' transition to full-fledged government security troops fell apart and was reconstituted only recently. U.S. officials acknowledge that the hiring of the Sunnis has slowed to a crawl.

U.S. and Iraqi officials agree that the Maliki government never agreed to hire more than 20 percent of the militia members. A Maliki ally said it was unreasonable to expect otherwise.

"All the Americans are doing is paying them just to be quiet," said Haider al Abadi, a leading member of Maliki's Dawa political party and the head of the economic and investment committee in the parliament. The Iraqi government, he said, can't "justify paying monthly salaries to people on the grounds that they are ex-insurgents."

The best that most of them could expect is to be placed in vocational training for trades such as bricklaying and plumbing, along with a slew of other unemployed people.

The government has allocated $150 million for such training. So far this year, the U.S. military has spent $303 million on Sons of Iraq salaries.

[. . .]

Abadi, the Maliki ally, was blunt in calling the militias a problem.

"You've created a problem here," he said. "You can't get rid of a program by shoveling it on the Iraqi government shoulders."

The Iraqi government has also been stepping up its efforts to detain, chase away, or otherwise exclude the SoIs/Awakening groups. Now, fast on the heels of actions against SoIs in Diyala (and escalating sectarian tensions), a senior Iraqi military commander is threatening a major crackdown in Baghdad. According to Fidel:

"We cannot stand them, and we detained many of them recently," said one senior Iraqi commander in Baghdad, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue. "Many of them were part of al Qaida despite the fact that many of them are helping us to fight al Qaida."

He said the army was considering setting a Nov. 1 deadline for those militia members who hadn't been absorbed into the security forces or given civilian jobs to give up their weapons. After that, they'd be arrested, he said.

What will the SoI response be? Here's a clue: many of these guys are "former" insurgents.

Some militia members say that such a move would force them into open warfare with the government again.

"If they disband us now, I will tell you that history will show we will go back to zero," said Mullah Shahab al Aafi, a former emir, or leader, of insurgents in Diyala province who's the acting commander of 24,000 Sons of Iraq there, 11,000 of whom are on the U.S. payroll. "I will not give up my weapons. I will never give them up, and I will carry my weapon again. If it is useless to talk to the government, I will be forced to carry my weapons and my pistol."

The conflict over the militias underscores how little has changed in Iraq in the past year despite the drop in violence, which American politicians often attribute to the temporary increase of U.S. troops in Iraq that ended in July.

[. . .]

Farouk Abd al Sattar Hassan Mohammed al Obeidi, a deputy Sunni militia commander in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiyah, wore a military uniform in an interview with McClatchy last week because he considered his men and himself to be soldiers.

He voiced frustration that his men had applied repeatedly to join the Iraqi Security Forces, to no avail.

"We wish we were part of the army. With deep remorse the government is sectarian," Obeidi said. He described his alliance with the U.S. forces as "the enemy of your enemy is your friend."

"The Sons of Iraq achieved security. Don't they deserve to enter the army?"

Obeidi will never see that happen. On Sunday, a suicide bomber on a bicycle killed him, along with five of his men and nine civilians.

And according to a senior intelligence analyst in the Fidel piece:

"If they only take a portion of them it's possible they will return to their insurgent ways," one senior intelligence analyst said, acknowledging that most of the men now called the Sons of Iraq had been insurgents, for al Qaida in Iraq and other groups that considered themselves resistance fighters against Americans.

He called the issue the "long-term threat."

Ya think?

Some argue that most SoIs would not revert to violence. Maybe. Perhaps most are tired of fighting. Perhaps most are deterred by the fact that the U.S. military (and perhaps the Iraqi government) have their biometric information. Perhaps most will be satisfied being plumbers. But here's a news flash: since there are 100,000 of these guys with guns, it wouldn't take most to revert to violence to cause a big problem. A mere 5-20 percent could cause a heck of a fireworks show. Remember, for years the U.S. military estimated the entire Sunni insurgency to be 8,000-20,000 guys.